Netanyahu loves presents and he got one while visiting Washington

The Netanyahus, that is to say Prime Minister Benjamin and his wife Sara, love the high life and they crave presents, preferably expensive ones. But on the occasion of his recent visit to Washington, the Israeli prime minister received a special present from US President Donald Trump, one that cannot be purchased in designer shops: a political rope, thrown out to save his drowning coalition.
Like many presents, it came with a price, but in this case the price will be paid by the Palestinians of Gaza, who will, if Trump and Netanyahu get their way, be ethnically cleansed from Gaza. And it will also be paid by Egypt and Jordan, who are being pressured into absorbing more than 2 million refugees.
Netanyahu is accustomed to receiving freebies, but on this occasion the gift is one that constitutes a war crime, probably several of them, and while he might think it sums up a successful visit to Washington, this is a minority opinion.
If you are wondering just how repulsive this plan is for the so-called “relocation” of most of the population of Gaza to neighboring countries, the very fact that it was greeted with unabated delight and enthusiasm by Bezalel Smotrich, the ultra-right Israeli finance minister and leader of the Zionist Religion party, provides a clue. One cannot remember the last time he showed any trace of humanity, either to Palestinians or even to his own fellow citizens who are still languishing as hostages of Hamas.
Netanyahu returned from Washington satisfied, even complacent, not because he thinks Trump’s plan is implementable — he probably knows these ideas might even signal the end of any chance of normalization with Saudi Arabia, and undermine Israel’s peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan — but because for him these are secondary considerations compared with the opportunity the Trump plan provides for him to keep his coalition government together.
Smotrich and his party remained in the coalition despite opposing the ceasefire deal, mainly to prevent its second phase, which entails ending the war. If Washington continues to come bearing such gifts, Netanyahu might also be celebrating the return to the coalition of Itamar Ben Gvir and his bunch of Khanists, which might improve the chances of this government surviving until next year’s election.
There were some other, lethal, gifts for Netanyahu during his visit to the US. Trump, for instance, instructed the Pentagon to release the hold imposed by the Biden administration on the supply of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. The State Department also approved the sale of weapons worth more than $7.4 billion, and is considering sending to Israel 24,000 assault rifles that were held up on the orders of Antony Blinken, the former secretary of state, for fear that many of them would end up in the hands of violent settlers.
No prime minister should be as smug as Netanyahu was during his trip to Washington and upon his return home, not when he is responsible for so much suffering, among both Israelis and Palestinians.

If Netanyahu does not care for his own people, how could anyone expect him to show any sympathy for the Palestinians?

Yossi Mekelberg

After the last round of exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, we all learned of the disturbing conditions endured by at least the three hostages most recently returned by Hamas. We can only imagine the state of the few remaining captives who are still alive, probably only barely so.
That is not to say that Hamas does not bear responsibility for the poor condition of the hostages, and for the way they were most cruelly and grotesquely paraded moments before their release. However, Netanyahu and his government were warned about the starvation and torture the captives have been enduring, and yet for many months the Israeli leadership remained opposed to the idea of negotiating any deal that could free them, despite several opportunities to do so.
They preferred to continue the war, not because this was the recommendation of their military chiefs, but to appease ultra-right members of the coalition; this took precedence over the lives and health of those who were kidnapped on the prime minister’s watch.
If Netanyahu does not care for his own people, how could anyone expect him to show any sympathy for the Palestinian people and the enormity of their suffering? Sadly, in this he has found a kindred spirit in the White House — probably several of them.
One of the reasons Netanyahu resorted to delaying tactics in the ceasefire negotiations with Hamas was his hope that Trump would return to the presidency. In this sense, his gamble seems to have paid off, at least for him if not for anyone else.
The early signs in the weeks leading up to Trump’s inauguration were encouraging, as it appeared he was prepared to put pressure on Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire agreement and eventually end the war, including the withdrawal of the Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip. But something flipped along the way, confirming his reputation for being “unpredictable,” and surprising even seasoned Trump-watchers, when he delivered the bombshell suggestion that the future of Gaza should unfold without the people of Gaza, a call for ethnic cleansing that continues to send shock waves across the world.
Declaring publicly that the US solution for Gaza entails a massive war crime — and doing so while Netanyahu, the first leader to visit the White House since Trump’s inauguration, was standing next to him in the White House — means his plan must be taken seriously, not simply shrugged off as just another one of his bombastic statements that could never happen. After all, this man holds the most powerful position in the world.
And we should also bear in mind that he made his unexpected announcement while standing next to an Israeli prime minister who, despite his obvious surprise, was quick to embrace the idea, calling this plan, which falls short even of the description half-baked, “revolutionary” and “creative.”
If Trump wants to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and he desperately does, forcing 2 million people from their homes and handing their territory to the US is not likely to convince the award committee that he is the most suitable candidate.
Netanyahu knows very well that even if he plays along with Trump’s terrifying fantasies, it might buy his coalition a temporary reprieve but it will damage Israel’s reputation for generations to come, along with any prospect of acceptance in the region, and would end any remaining perceptions of Israel as a progressive democracy.
For that reason, and so many others, he should have warned the new White House administration not to even toy with such a revolting idea, but instead to support the reconstruction of Gaza for, and with, its Palestinian people. But this would have required a principled and courageous leader, not one whose only concern is to escape justice by derailing his own corruption trial.

• Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg